The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

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AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA
have been installed in the central dome of the
monument and then see if the actual statue
fits
these requirements. The interpretation of
the idol of the terminal stupa - and indeed the
interpretation of the whole monument - is
intimately related to the cult of the Devaraja
centring around such replicas of the world
scheme in architecture as the Bayon at Angkor
Thorn in Cambodia. 5
In Java, there is evidence that the Devaraja
in the form of a lingam was worshipped as early
as the sixth century. A later inscription reads
Having set up with due devotion the statue of the king
who was consecrated in the shape of Mahaksobhya . .
I his humble servant have prepared this description
by order of the priest Vajrajnana. 6
In other words, the great kings were regarded as
manifestations of the Buddhas, too.
This leads us to the conclusion that the statue
of the chief stupa, following Cambodian precedent,
would have been that of a divinized king -
a Devaraja or Buddharaja - the great Sailendra
or King of the Mountain. The seventy-two
Buddhas, like the multiple heads of the Bayon
towers - in addition to their time symbolism -
stood for the extension and emanation of the
royal and divine power to every part of the
Sailendra Empire; that is, there are really not
seventy-two Buddhas, but one Buddha everywhere
manifested. The whole shrine is then the
complete world and its order, the succession of
points visited by the sun in its round, the cycle
of time materialized in space constituting the
Law rendered visible in the geographic, political,
and spiritual centre of the realm.
The chief statue may have been another
Vairocana. What it was, or if there was any
statue there at all, does not matter materially.
This central highest point is important as the
summit of the hierarchy, and the terminal stupa,
empty or with an image in it, would stand for
the Supreme Buddha and the apotheosis of the
sovereign. The image or symbol at the highest
and innermost point represents - like the highest
form in the two mandalas - the reduction of
multiplicity into essential unity, since in Vairocana
all is One. It is the Universal King and
Perfect Sage who, placed at the centre of the
cosmic wheel, sets it in motion and is himself
unmoved as the Pole whereon he reigns. It
would represent at once the universal rule and
the extension of that rule to every atom in every
world of the cosmic system and, as at Angkor,
the magic centre where was enthroned the
divine essence of kings.
Vairocana is actually the historical Buddha
idealized in Dharmakaya, the eternal body of
the Law or Logos. The Jataka tales and the
Buddha legend carved in the galleries of Barabudur
are of course properly part of the esoteric
teaching, as they illustrate at once the way to
Buddhahood and reveal Sakyamuni as the
material earthly appearance of Vairocana. The
whole monument with its hundreds of reliefs
and statues is a vast mandala that shows every
phase of existence at all times and in all places as
so many corporeal manifestations of the divine
and indescribable and yet universal essence of
Vairocana, with which the essence of the king
has been merged in supreme apotheosis. Every
detail of sculpture and every aspect of the
architectural form have been dedicated to the
expression of this hieratic scheme: what we
generally refer to as the 'style' of both the
architecture and the sculpture has been completely
determined by the nature of the magical
conception that the monument was destined to
express.
Just as the general architectural form of Barabudur
shows an obvious dependence on Indian
prototypes iconographic and architectural, so,
too, its sculptural ornamentation reveals an
ultimate dependence on the plastic tradition of
India proper. But, just as the plan and elevation
of the building dedicated to the exposition of a
phase of esoteric Buddhism seem to mark an
entirely new and different employment of the